When I’m at a church training a new youth leadership team, I always talk about the power of an hour. Now, I’m not talking to the pastors or the youth pastors so much. I’m talking to the volunteer staff that show up week in and week out. The guys and girls that work a regular job 40 hours a week. For you, it’s real tempting to show up on youth group night, check in for 2 hours, then check out again ’til next week. Cue in the hour talk.
I think every youth volunteer ought to commit to spend AT LEAST one hour a week OUTSIDE youth group or any other church function ministering to the teens in their group. Now, depending on your youth group structure, this might be focused on the students in your small group, or on the group as a whole. But the goal is to spend a whole hour each week ministering to those students.
At first, people have one of two completely opposite reactions. Let’s check them out.
An hour isn’t enough. I can do way more than that.
If that’s you, awesome! Go for it as much as you want. But if you’re brand new to youth ministry, I suggest you start with an hour. It’s a lot harder than you think. Also, you can accomplish a lot more than you would ever imagine in one hour a week.
An hour?? Are you kidding, I’m already sacrificing to be at youth group every week.
Hey, it’s 60 minutes out of your whole week. I tell the volunteers to split it up any way they like. An hour all at once, 10 minutes a day, whatever. But if you can’t do that, you might not be the best choice for a youth group leader. Think about how much you can commit. Start somewhere.
OK fine, I’m sold. I should be ministering to my students an hour a week. BUT HOW? Here’s some ideas:
1. Pick 2 different students up for lunch at school (30 minutes each)
2. Spend 10 minutes a day praying for 6 different students
3. Spend 15 minutes 4 times during the week on Facebook with different students
4. Spend 10 minutes a day writing 6 different notes through out the week
5. Have one student over for family dinner one night this week
6. Have 2 students come over for a half hour and help you change the oil (2×30 minutes counts for your hour)
There’s a million ways to accomplish this, but the principle is that you set a goal and spend a specified amount of time each week reaching out to your students. Nothing spells fake like a leader who checks in once a week to do the “youth group thing.” You ought to mix it up too. Don’t do the same thing every week.
The point here is that you communicate in a real way to the students that you care and are actively seeking to be involved with them. An hour a week will go a long way.
